Ladies and gentlemen... the WrongPlanet writing showcase

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That poem's really great, postpaleo. I really like it. I can picture it, and I really like the words you've chosen, and the way you've put them together. The meter is very regular and contemplative. The sound of the words together like that creates a really good atmosphere.

It's hard to know what a reader will take away from a poem. I never know what people will get out of my poetry either.

Frank Zappa said something along the lines of this. I do my music for me, if someone else likes it, then that's just more frosting on the cake. Lol, I see what he's saying but I want to at least guess what it is others see. It's like I would like a peek, so I can try to improve it. I'd rather have a critic then someone that makes me blush at something I still think is poor. Maybe I am in a way. I'm finding my earlier stuff to be, well poor and think I can do them better now. I'm trying to resist the urge, let them be as they are for looking back at it again. I don't know if this the right approach. There's an awful lot I don't know about this stuff. Maybe it is fair to redo them, only with what I see the intent to be in the first one, still leave it alone but do another with the same intent, just try to do it better. Hell I don't know, lol.

Some poem I wrote 2002 to experiment with the English language...



atlantis

never-come-back
melodies
your heart lost
somewhere
under the sea

memories in blue
enchant your song
that follows
the waves with
mathematic force

dreamer at the shore
maybe
those are
tears from atlantis
in your hair

Here's a story I'm working on. God only knows where it will go. Title may be temporary.

Wing-nut

The froggy bottom of oak month livid and loathing as yesterday’s mother down on her knees in whodunit logo rhythm spiraled out of the faucet like a sinister storm with sixteen epicenters gasping for breath and screaming for Saigon noodles. I put up with it for as long as I could and then I took off with some fried chicken in a brown bag and a thermos full of lucky lady coffee sweetened with cactus flower honey imported from an underground desert purportedly below the streets of Cincinnati.

Arcadia bound I hitched my way in a variety of vehicles not worth mentioning except for the pumpkin scented Plymouth wagon shot full of holes on the driver’s side and perfectly suited for snoozing in between red lights. The driver was a piss ant naked from the waist up with a good set of teeth and miniature ears plugged up with cotton or so it appeared. I gave him the remnants of my fried chicken which by this time was smelling pretty raunchy though he didn’t seem to mind cause he was starving man and sick to death of hamburger. I got out ten miles short of my destination because he had to make a hard left and pigeon-toed it up the highway taking in the atmosphere as best I could without letting on that my infrared was on the blink and my wing nut had rolled down the embankment. My luck ran out years ago but I had a hunch I would find it again in arcadia. My endorphins were blooming.

Twitty Prist did not meet me at the door as planned but biggie matilda invited me in and gave me the lowdown. I was a day too late. Twitty took off yesterday abruptly right after the mail came without even saying toodleloo. Matilda was out on the balcony having a smoke with old lady Dick from the 2nd floor. “I heard the door slam and that was that no goodbye no see you later no thanks for everything no nothin and she went and took my suitcase that I never even got to use yet. My brand new red suitcase. What a nerve. What a nerve. What if I wanna go to Vegas or something. My daughter got me that suitcase for Christmas last year and I never even got a chance to use it. After all I done for that girl. Old lady Dick said her son Buddy saw her down in front of the bus station talkin to some weird lookin guy in a skirt. She was sittin on my suitcase and it looked like it was about to bust. She‘s got warrants yuh know.”

Matilda was the tallest woman I‘d ever seen. She had to duck when she went through a doorway. She was wearing a sleeveless lime green mumu smeared all over with big white orchids. Her armpit hair had collected a lot of foreign matter in a variety of hues and she had an odor about her that was hard to pin-point, pleasant and putrid at the same time. Her feet were bare and surprisingly well maintained, pale blue polish on the nails of her long slender toes. Her hands were a mess though, rough and wrinkled with short fat nail-bitten fingers, mitts, paws, anatomical atrocities. A diploma on the kitchen wall claimed she was a certified advanced rolfer. A photograph of a kind looking big bosomed gray haired woman hung next to it. “That‘s Ida,” she said, and then “Have yuh ever been rolfed?” I thought about it for a moment and said “No, I don’t think so.” She thought that was hilarious. “Aw, honey,” she said, “yud know. It isn’t somethin yud hafta think about.” And then she started clearing the table. “Come on,” she said, “climb up there. I’ll rolf yuh right now if yuh want.” She reminded me of Julia Child getting ready to prepare coq au vin. Reaching for a bottle of red wine. Salivating.
Why do you do me like you do me. It was a phrase I couldn’t get out of my head, it kept ringing in there with no particular rhythm or melody that I could nail down, just dancing letters rolling across my frontal lobe marquee fashion, sometimes flashing neon pink and green making me think of a jacket I wore when I was six years old running behind the mosquito truck in a fog of DDT. Talk about nostalgia. Even now as Matilda tried to coax me up on her table I couldn’t shake the words loose and feared they might become imbedded on a cellular level and I’d be stuck with them for life. Matilda was scraping dried egg yolk off the table with a practically nonexistent thumbnail and I was numb and spinning in an olfactory nightmare of insecticide and Evening in Paris. “What the hell,” I thought, “What do I have to lose.” But just then …………….

The door opened and in walked Twitty.

Eller, your poem, Atlantis, is quite good, very evocative and etherial. I'm not the easiest to please as far as poetry goes. But this I enjoyed. It is not pretentious.

I liked it but stumbled over the word mathematic, it didn't keep the flow of your over all, my feeling anyway. I found a great little site for help when looking for a word. Sort of feels like cheating to me, but I'll get over it. Nice flow to it, painted a picture, I like it. http://www.rhymezone.com/?loc=bar

Thanks, though I most likely won't need that site - I have a lot of weird hobbies, but writing poetry in foreign languages is NOT one of them. The atlantis thing is something that... happened. I guess my German poems are better.

Cool, to see words like that, as a hobby. Yeah figured it might be a language thing. Problem with books, some have to wait till the translation is done well and I don't think they ever get done to the full intent of the writer. At least that's what I've heard. I hope you didn't mind my comments.

I do wonder what the purpose of this gathering could accomplish and still be, humm, nice is the wrong word. It's hard to compare apples and oranges. I don't use that style of poetry and some don't use it all. I would suggest a project. Say pick a word. I'll use "Clown" as an example. Those with time, might use their style to do what that word or expression means to them. It would be more of a view of our differing styles. We could ask the group of what they thought of certian parts that we had trouble with, did we get a certian message across, or something along those lines? Just a thought. No grade on them. It's all good.

Reversal
Am I here or was I, now
in a burr? - a motion that's useless;
find that they come to an end after all.
On this continuous play by play,
we find there is an end after all.

My eyes are open,
that doesn't mean I'm here today.
I still can't see enough
to stop my feet from tripping.
This concrete that's so stable
yet this world it still so blurry
but I found a truth today,
there is no exit after all.

Words to context to meaning
should be a direct translation
still I find myself mishearing
frequency disrupted ~
response


delay -- connection lost.

This is inevitable,
reversal fastworwarded.
The reverse effect of mankind.
Our progress is null.

We are invisible, we are -
and this is not reversible;
on this plane I search forever,
where I begin, I am the end.

Brilliant use of line space and you tied the begining of the break and picked up the break with excellent choice of words. That poem was a huge encouragement to me to play with that. Was thinking of line breaks for the beat, rythm, but never ever thought of that kind of tie in. Just astonding.

Glad you like it paleo.

Last edited by agentcyclosarin on 19 May 2007, 10:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

Meh, stuff isn't all that great but figured I would share anyway. I don't write much anymore but miss it sometimes

Raindrops
***********
My mind is numb,
My spirit-dead,
My heart unfeeling-
full of dread.

I feel no sadness,
I feel no pain,
I walk alone
out in the rain.

These raindrops hide
the tears that run;
To the world around,
My mind is numb.

My days are numbered,
My soul is weak-
But I still dream
and goals I seek.

Emotions aren't
a part of me...
Nothing's wrong-
so leave me be.


Break
*********
See people smiling so fake
Covering up their anger,
sadness,
insanity...

Reality will hit one day
I believe,
I feel,
I know...

It happens all too much for me
when the skies turn to gray,
my soul fades away,
my mind goes astray,
I don't want to play
the role,
this game...

I'm losing my mind,
just buying my time
until it all unwinds
and I come to find
my way,
my purpose,
myself...

One day I will
I hope it comes soon
because I'm so lost
so lonely
so numb.

I was thinking about sharing something, but as I tend to work my way from the small details up, I usually don't put the whole story together until the last moment, and it may take me a long time before I do. I don't even have chapters because I like writing whole pieces of internal monologue which span about a day or so (but with a lot of going back and forth in time).

So all I could share for now are random snippets, just to see whether my descriptions and imagery work (because it's all about imagery in the end). Does anyone think I ought to do this?

sure, most books I buy wind up being bought because of snippets I read on the covers and such

Sure, ixochiyo_yohuallan. I have a lot of little snippets.
I like little phrases or mini poems.
Like my signature.

"On this lonely planet,
we are people of distortion"
(might incorporate that somewhere, it just recently came to mind since I've somehow regained my obsession with a certain song more for the translation than the video and song as it was a while ago.)

I put this one almost everywhere:
"A simple mind couldn't turn you into what I want you to be; I am program and we are technology. A simple mind couldn't turn you in to what I see; I am a system - complex circuitry. A simple mind couldn't turn you in to what I believe; I am obsolete. As humans we fail becomming |[ Less || organic ]| |[ more || mechanic ]| "

I have an assignment in one of my classes to "write a lullaby for a specific audience" (yeah, it's a useless, inane course, it's called "Communications Technology" but has absolutely nothing to do with technology), so I came up with this song. I wrote it about the girl in the autism speaks video whose mother said something about wanting to throw her off a bridge (yeah, I know. What the hell?)

Jodie's Lullaby

Hush my darling, don’t you cry
For you are safe tonight
Don’t worry about the days ahead
Everything will be alright

If they don’t understand you,
That’s their fault, not yours,
Your mom wishes you were different
Your kindness she ignores.

Someday when you’re older,
You’ll meet others like you,
You’ll be loved for who you are,
You’ll grow to love them, too.

Go to sleep, my child,
For in your dreams tonight
You’ll run and swing and jump and play,
In a world that’s beautiful and bright.

Hush my darling, don’t you cry
For you are safe tonight
Don’t worry about the days ahead
Everything will be alright